Best Tools for Code Review

We all know that code review is one of the most important processes when it comes to writing great software. With the right tools, code reviews become easy and smooth, saving you time and effort. Therefore, I will lay out before you some of the best tools for code review based on my own years of professional experience.

Code review is an important part of developing high quality code. Code review helps to reduce the number of defects and ensures code is meeting specifications and is maintainable by many developers. Luckily we have great tools available to make the code review easier and more efficient. I’ve narrowed down five tools that I think fit the bill when it comes to code review with a web application or PHP/MySQL backend. This list is not in any particular order, but if the topic interests you please let me know in the comments below!

Review Board

Review Board is a web-based, open source tool for code review. To test this code review tool, you can either explore the demo on their website or download and set up the software on your server.

The Python programming language and its installers, MySQL or PostgreSQL as a database, and a web server are the prerequisites to run Review Board on a server.

You can integrate Review Board with a wide range of version control systems — Git, Mercurial, CVS, Subversion and Perforce. You can also link Review Board to Amazon S3 for storing screenshots directly in the tool.

Review Board lets you perform both pre-commit and post-commit code reviews depending on your requirements. If you haven’t integrated a version control system, you can use a diff file to upload code changes to the tool for a review.

A graphical comparison of changes in your code is also provided. In addition to code reviews, Review Board lets you conduct document reviews too.

The first version of Review Board came out over a decade ago, but it’s still in active development. Therefore, the community for Review Board has grown over the years and you will likely find support if you have any issues using the tool.

Review Board is a simple tool for code reviews, which you can host on your server. You should give it a try if you do not wish to host your code on a public website.

GitHub

If you use GitHub to maintain your Git repositories on the cloud, you may have already used forks and pull requests to review code. In case you have no idea of what GitHub is, here’s a beginner’s guide to GitHub and the differences between Git and GitHub.

GitHub has an inbuilt code review tool in its pull requests. The code review tool is bundled with GitHub’s core service, which provides a free plan for developers. GitHub’s free plan limits the number of users to three in private repositories. Paid plans start at $7 per month.

GitHub allows a reviewer with access to the code repository to assign themselves to the pull request and complete a review. A developer who has submitted the pull request may also request a review from an administrator.

In addition to the discussion on the overall pull request, you are able to analyze the diff, comment inline, and check the history of changes. The code review tool also allows you to resolve simple Git conflicts through the web interface. GitHub even allows you to integrate with additional review tools through its marketplace to create a more robust process.

The GitHub code review tool is a great tool if you are already on the platform. It does not require any additional installation or configuration. The primary issue with the GitHub code review tool is that it supports only Git repositories hosted on GitHub. If you are looking for a similar code review tool that you can download and host on your server, you can try GitLab.

SmartBear Collaborator

SmartBear Collaborator is the most comprehensive peer code review tool, built for teams working on projects where code quality is critical.

Key Features:

See code changes, identify defects, and make comments on specific lines. Set review rules and automatic notifications to ensure that reviews are completed on time.
Custom review templates are unique to the Collaborator. Set custom fields, checklists, and participant groups to tailor peer reviews to your team’s ideal workflow.
Easily integrates with 11 different SCMs, as well as IDEs like Eclipse & Visual Studio
Build custom review reports to drive process improvement and make auditing easy.
Conduct peer document reviews with the same tool so that teams can easily align on requirements, design changes, and compliance burdens.

CodeScene

CodeScene detects and prioritizes technical debt based on how the organization works with the code. CodeScene integrates into your delivery pipeline as an extra team member that predicts delivery risks and provides context-aware quality gates. Integrate it with GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab or via CodeScene’s official Jenkins plugin.

Key Features:

Automatic code review comments on pull requests.
Quality gates for CI/CD.
A goal-oriented work-flow for planning improvements.
Supervise technical debt and code health.
Works with any Git hosting.
Integrate with Jira to track trends in delivery performance.
CodeScene is available both on-premise and as a hosted version.

Visual Assist

Visual Assist is a well-known productivity extension for Visual Studio and Unreal Engine 4. It’s written by C++ developers for C++ developers and has a wealth of features to enhance developer productivity.

Features:

FAST NAVIGATION – Move about your code with newfound ease—to any file, method, symbol, or reference in your projects and solutions.
CODE INSPECTION AND MODERNIZATION – Inspect your code for specific quality issues and modernize your older code.
REFACTORING – Reduce the complexity of your code, improve readability, and make it extensible without changing external behavior.
CODE CORRECTION – Watch Visual Assist correct mistakes as you make them.
UNREAL ENGINE 4 – Forge your vision to reality with tailored support.
CODE ASSISTANCE – Write code faster with assistance that doesn’t get in the way.

Gerrit

This open-source, lightweight tool, built over the “Git version control system,”. It is one of the best code review tools for python which is useful in project environments where all users are trusted committers as this tool allows them to check overall changes made in the project.